Chapter 2.5.1 Kind of Chemistry, Kind of Biology, Let's Call it Chemology

Fine. It’s Actually Called Biochemistry

This gets to be chapter 2.5 because it’s still a shit ton of chemistry but it’s actually getting into biology (finally) and is important enough to deserve it’s own section. And I’m in charge and I wanted to do it. So while this field is technically called biochemistry, I’m going to stick with calling it chemology because it’s more fun to say and type than the alternative. So onward and upward with chemology!

In the last chapter, we discussed how life is nothing but a bunch of juice sacks interacting with other juice sacks and within that juice, we had solutes dissolved. Now, if we had to keep everything small and simple, life wouldn’t exist. It just wouldn’t. In order to do all the stuff we mentioned in chapter one that is necessary for life, we need some big ass molecules. HUGE molecules. How big are they? These molecules are so big they have to use a boomerang to put their belts on. (I can’t believe I just made a your momma joke about macromolecules...God help us all). They’re so big they get a special name: macromolecules. This literally translates to “large molecules” so bonus points on creativity there. Easiest way to make this stuff make sense is to imagine a paper clip chain or something similar. Maybe just a regular chain. Either way, something made up of a bunch of links. Or a trilogy of movies telling a single story. I could go on and on with analogies if I wanted to get my word count up but I’m trying to keep this concise so we’ll leave it with those two: a chain and a trilogy of films. The entire length of chain, or the full story arc is known as the polymer, meaning many -mers. Each link in the chain, or film in the series, is a monomer, which means, you guessed it, one -mer. Like the films, the monomers in a polymer can be unique things that fit together to create a larger unit (...larger unit...that’s funny) or, like in the chain, they can all be the exact damn thing. So all of these macromolecules we’re going to talk about are the polymer and each is made up of monomers, which themselves could be polymers made of monomers (with me?)

In biology, life is all about opposite but related actions. So if we're going to take the time and effort to create these large molecules, we're eventually going to want to break them apart. That's where the following reactions come in. Now before you get confused, try to keep up. Based on their names, you may be able to figure out that they both involve a water molecule in some way. Dehydration synthesis reactions are how you go from monomers, any monomers, and form a polymer. It's called dehydration not because you're losing a water molecule from the overall reaction (the real mindfuck is that you're actually producing one) but because you're pulling a water out of the reactants. One reactant loses a hydrogen and the other loses a hydroxyl group (remember, that's an oxygen and a hydrogen) and together that forms a water. The opposite process, where you introduce a water to break apart a polymer, with one part gaining a hydrogen and the other the hydroxyl is known as hydrolysis. Hydro meaning water and -lysis from the word to split, so it really makes sense that hydrolysis is splitting with water. This all makes more sense with a picture so hopefully when I actually publish this, it'll have a picture right…..here.

So let's talk about the different macromolecules and we'll start with the most delicious: carbohydrates